1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a power driven rotary knife for use in slicing relatively thin strips of a comestible product. In particular, the present invention relates to a relatively light weight, hand held and power driven rotary knife having an adjustable gauge for controlling the thickness of a sliced strip of meat and a grease deflector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
So-called fast food marketing has been expanding to include many new foods to appeal to a relatively large customer base. One popular food now being offered is a "gyro", "kabob" or "donner kabob" sandwich which include thin slices of meat cut from composite logs of meat. The logs are typically made from chunks of various meats and/or ground or commutated meat formed into a substantially frusto-conical shape and seasoned. The logs range typically from about six inches to one foot in diameter at the base and about two feet in diameter at the top with a height of eighteen inches to three feet. The logs are supported on a metallic plate in a vertical orientation and are rotated so heat applied from the back of an oven cooks the log to a very limited depth inward from an exterior surface. The front of the oven is open and an operator may slice strips of meat from the exterior surface of the log.
Originally, a slicing operator used a known straight bladed knife to manually cut the strips of meat from the log. A great deal of skill was typically required to cut along the entire length of the exterior surface of the log and to concurrently control the thickness of the strip of meat. Relatively high pay accompanies this high skill level. This was acceptable for restaurant trade, but is slow and expensive for fast food marketing.
Power driven rotary knives have been used to a limited extent to improve the slicing operation. For example, it is understood that a knife similar to that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,924 has been tried for this purpose. However, the knife was designed for use in meat packing houses, is expensive, relatively heavy for continuous use by personnel who work in fast food restaurants for applications where the meat is sliced from vertically oriented logs for relatively long hours. The knife also requires a cable drive and an extensive installation of a heavy duty electric motor suspended from above to drive the cable which is undesirable for restaurant use, or requires an air motor in the knife handle and a supply of pressurized air which is typically not available at fast food restaurants.
Thickness control gauges, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,323, are available for such known rotary knives. However, the construction of such gauges is not satisfactory for the slicing of products such as cooked meat used for gyro sandwiches, for example, because the thin slices from a vertical log would tend to curl back and engage the cutting blade.
Another power driven rotary knife has been proposed for slicing strips of meat from vertically oriented donner kabob meat logs, as disclosed in British Application No. 2 238 229. The knife has a circular blade with a peripheral cutting edge that rotates at one end of a handle about a longitudinal axis of the handle. However, the use of such a knife has disadvantages because it is relatively heavy and must be used at an unnatural wrist orientation.
In addition, the large amount of grease present in the composite meat logs presents problems for a power driven knife and particularly with a rotary annular blade that tends to pick up and carry the grease to the grip handle area rather than letting it run down the log as when a straight hand knife is used. Grease and debris can flow into the drive mechanism of the power driven knife and also onto the handle, making it difficult to hold, thereby increasing the fatigue experienced by the operator. The grease is often hot and any contact with an operator's hand or wrist is undesirable.
Thus, a need exists for a relatively light weight power driven knife that enables control of the thickness of a slice of meat so people of a relatively low skill level may use the knife to efficiently slice meat from a composite log. It is desirable that the knife be easily installed in a fast food restaurant without special installation structures, readily assembled and disassembled for cleaning and blade replacement by unskilled workers, and that it include provision for deflecting grease or other fluid released from the product as the product is sliced. It is also desirable from a production standpoint that the knife can slice when moved in both the downward and upward direction along the surface of vertically oriented log.